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By far the most inspiring and ingenuous contemporary novel I’ve read this year and a must-read to anyone who has ever lived, visited, loved, or been baffled by Berkeley, California. Death row, dystopia, mental breakdown, mother-daughter relationships, and sexual awakening—these are only a few of the topics Meidav investigates, and she does so in a most singular way. Using Berkeley as her setting of choice, she portrays our city with infinite accuracy.
So, I must admit, I sort of struggled through the first 50 pages. But then I was hooked. Meidav guides us through the lives of Lana and Rose, two inseparable teenage girls convinced of their grooviness, sexiness, and of course maturity. Between sunbathing topless and raiding the parental liquor cabinet, the girls deal with Lana’s eccentric-enchanting father, a professor with a cult-like following.
Years later, we find him serving jail time for murdering Lana’s mother. Lana is in hiding, not only from media but from Rose as well. But Rose is determined to reunite her long-lost friend with her father, and manages to track down Lana at a health spa. In this unexpected locale, the women penetrate into their past, sorting through a menagerie of welcome and unwelcome memories in order to find their future.
What can I say? Read this book.
